Although they were never close in school, they bond trying to figure out ways to earn more money. Parvana runs into a girl who she used to go to school with named Shauzia. She also continues her father's business of reading and writing letters for illiterate people.

Weera decide to disguise Parvana as a boy by cutting her hair and dressing her in her deceased brother Hossain's old clothes so that she can buy groceries. Weera and a group of women to write the Afghanistan National Magazine, smuggling it to and from Pakistan so it can be published. Eventually, Parvana's mother begins to feel better and joins Mrs. Weera, a former physical education teacher, who comes to stay with Parvana's family to help Parvana's depressed mother and take charge of the household.

Because Parvana's father can no longer work, her family situation becomes dire, as women are not allowed to travel outside the home unless accompanied by a related male in Afghanistan. Soon after, her mother becomes depressed and will not move from her toshak (thin mattress). Parvana and her mother go to the local jail and beg for her father to be freed, but the guards beat them for being so outspoken. Taliban soldiers enter her house and arrest her father for having a foreign education. Parvana is an 11-year-old girl who lives in Kabul, Afghanistan with her mother Fatana, her father, her bossy older sister Nooria, her cheerful younger sister Maryam and her baby brother Ali. The novel was followed by three sequels, Parvana's Journey in 2002, Mud City in 2003, and My Name is Parvana in 2012.

The book has received several literary awards, including the Peter Pan Prize and the Middle East Book Award in 2002. The title of the book refers to the role of the protagonist, 11-year-old Parvana, who is forced by circumstances to be the breadwinner for her family in a war-torn Taliban-era in Afghanistan.įor her research, the author spent several months interviewing women and girls in refugee camps in Pakistan, and used these interviews as the basis of her depiction of life in Afghanistan. As of October 2013, the English-language edition of the book has had a run of 39 editions. The Breadwinner, also known as Parvana, is a children's novel by Deborah Ellis, first published in 2001.

The breadwinner trilogy books